10.13.08

Cypher 13 (the guys behind Joyengine) have moved the remaining toys from their Soft and Furry exhibition into their storefront where you can now place your order. There are some pretty cool custom toys in there by some notable artists and designers.

07.17.08

My friend Todd from Joyengine sent this over to me today and asked that I post it. Basically he and his boys have been working hard on a project that has continued to evolve and push them into new territory. The end results of which will be available in early fall. The project, entitled ‘Soft and Furry’ could yield some pretty interesting results as there are a lot of people involved and it sounds as though Todd is pretty serious about it. So here you go.

“SOFT&FURRY™ was born on a whim. It began by stumbling upon an interesting real-time countdown piece of javascript. We found the script intriguing so we took a deeper look. Being the type-loving geeks that we are, we decided to build a simple .htm page around this script using some really oversized web-text set in Helvetica Bold. We then just sorta threw the page up on one of the domains we owned. That domain happened to be softandfurry.com. We set the countdown on roughly March 13th, counting down in the form of days, hours, minutes, and seconds until June 13th. We didn’t know what SOFT&FURRY™ was going to become but we were sure we’d come up with something. About six weeks in to the countdown the notion of creating some sort of alternative logo design contest reared its head. Then we sort of shelved it. A couple of weeks later our good friend and regular collaborator Dea Webb, owner of Denver’s Plastic Chapel, the region’s premier purveyor or artist-driven designer toys gave us a call and asked if we’d like to have an art exhibition at her and Dave’s shop in September. We were stoked and leapt at the opportunity. Almost immediately after hanging up the phone with Dea S&F™ took shape.

Having made all sorts of wooden custom toys and painted and customized loads of blanks we’d always yearned to create our own line of toys. The time to do it was now. We decided we’d design and produce, all by hand, our own line of artist-series designer toys under the name SOFT&FURRY™. And, so, in true collaborative fashion we began the S&F™ logo contest, empowering someone other than ourselves to create the identity for the project. After eight weeks we’d choose a winner and utilizing their winning identity, we’d design and produce the toys, the packaging, a series of posters, decals, apparel, and a book detailing the story, our toy design and production process, and highlighting all the logos we’d received. The winner would receive one of everything we produced, including toys, the book, accessories, and whatever else happens to get made.

As of today, the logo contest is in its 6th week. All of our toys have been designed, and the production process is underway. The book layout has begun, the next iteration of softandfurry.com is underway, and we’re awaiting the winning logo (roughly two weeks from today) to begin designing the packaging and other collateral. The initial toy run will consist of roughly 90-100 full scale toys and hopefully a one third scale blind-box series. In terms of finishing we’re aiming to have roughly 30 international collabs, 30 national collabs, 30 in-house designs, numerous blanks, and a local artist-based blind box series, all to drop September 6th at Dea and Dave’s Plastic Chapel. We’re gonna bust ass, keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. We hope to see you on the 6th.”

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Off the record

05/18 SENDAK PASSES The brilliant author and illustrator Maurice Sendak passed away last week at the age of 83 but will no doubt be remembered for generations to come for his amazing books such as Where the Wild Things Are.

04/12 ZIMMERMAN FACES MURDER In a case we’ve been following closely there is finally what we think is some good news to report. George ZImmerman, the man accused of killing the innocent teenager Trayvon Martin has been taken into custody and charged with second degree murder. At last there is some justice.

12/16 HITCHENS DIES Outspoken author and pundit Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday at the age of 62 after succombing to a long battle with cancer. His honest and bravado opinion that rarely favored one side versus the other but was instead often a cry for ‘reason’ will be missed.

11/23 BURZYNKSI CLINIC Is there an alternative, non-toxic treatment for cancer? Dr. Stanislaw R. Burzynski seems to think so and has been experiencing higher rate of success than the current accepted practice of treating cancer.